Tools

"... Abstract. This paper addresses the problem of designing practical protocols for proving properties about encrypted data. To this end, it presents a variant of the new public key encryption of Cramer and Shoup based on Paillier’s decision composite residuosity assumption, along with efficient protoco ..."

Abstract. This paper addresses the problem of designing practical protocols for proving properties about encrypted data. To this end, it presents a variant of the new public key encryption of Cramer and Shoup based on Paillier’s decision composite residuosity assumption, along with efficient protocols for verifiable encryption and decryption of discrete logarithms (and more generally, of representations with respect to multiple bases). This is the first verifiable encryption system that provides chosen ciphertext security and avoids inefficient cut-and-choose proofs. The presented protocols have numerous applications, including key escrow, optimistic fair exchange, publicly verifiable secret and signature sharing, universally composable commitments, group signatures, and confirmer signatures. 1

"... Abstract. This paper presents efficient off-line anonymous e-cash schemes where a user can withdraw a wallet containing 2 ℓ coins each of which she can spend unlinkably. Our first result is a scheme, secure under the strong RSA and the y-DDHI assumptions, where the complexity of the withdrawal and s ..."

Abstract. This paper presents efficient off-line anonymous e-cash schemes where a user can withdraw a wallet containing 2 ℓ coins each of which she can spend unlinkably. Our first result is a scheme, secure under the strong RSA and the y-DDHI assumptions, where the complexity of the withdrawal and spend operations is O(ℓ + k) andtheuser’s wallet can be stored using O(ℓ + k) bits,wherek is a security parameter. The best previously known schemes require at least one of these complexities to be O(2 ℓ · k). In fact, compared to previous e-cash schemes, our whole wallet of 2 ℓ coins has about the same size as one coin in these schemes. Our scheme also offers exculpability of users, that is, the bank can prove to third parties that a user has double-spent. We then extend our scheme to our second result, the first e-cash scheme that provides traceable coins without a trusted third party. That is, once a user has double spent one of the 2 ℓ coins in her wallet, all her spendings of these coins can be traced. However, the price for this is that the complexity of the spending and of the withdrawal protocols becomes O(ℓ · k) and O(ℓ · k + k 2) bits, respectively, and wallets take O(ℓ · k) bitsofstorage. All our schemes are secure in the random oracle model.

"... We create a credential system that lets a user anonymously authenticate at most n times in a single time period. A user withdraws a dispenser of n e-tokens. She shows an e-token to a verifier to authenticate herself; each e-token can be used only once, however, the dispenser automatically refreshes ..."

We create a credential system that lets a user anonymously authenticate at most n times in a single time period. A user withdraws a dispenser of n e-tokens. She shows an e-token to a verifier to authenticate herself; each e-token can be used only once, however, the dispenser automatically refreshes every time period. The only prior solution to this problem, due to Damg˚ard et al. [30], uses protocols that are a factor of k slower for the user and verifier, where k is the security parameter. Damg˚ard et al. also only support one authentication per time period, while we support n. Because our construction is based on e-cash, we can use existing techniques to identify a cheating user, trace all of her e-tokens, and revoke her dispensers. We also offer a new anonymity service: glitch protection for basically honest users who (occasionally) reuse etokens. The verifier can always recognize a reused e-token; however, we preserve the anonymity of users who do not reuse e-tokens too often. 1

"... Abstract. It is usually the case that before a transaction can take place, some mutual trust must be established between the participants. On-line, doing so requires the exchange of some certified information about the participants. The easy solution is to disclose one’s identity and reveal all of o ..."

Abstract. It is usually the case that before a transaction can take place, some mutual trust must be established between the participants. On-line, doing so requires the exchange of some certified information about the participants. The easy solution is to disclose one’s identity and reveal all of one’s certificates to establish such a trust relationship. However, it is clear that such an approach is unsatisfactory from a privacy point of view. In fact, often revealing any information that uniquely corresponds to a given individual is a bad idea from the privacy point of view. In this survey paper we describe a framework where for each transaction there is a precise specification of what pieces of certified data is revealed to each participant. We show how to specify transactions in this framework, give examples of transactions that use it, and describe the cryptographic building blocks that this framework is built upon. We conclude with bibliographic notes on the state-of-the-art in this area. 1

"... Abstract. Digital Signatures enable authenticating messages in a way that disallows repudiation. While non-repudiation is essential in some applications, it might be undesirable in others. Two related notions of authentication are: Deniable Authentication (see Dwork, Naor and Sahai [25]) and Ring Si ..."

Abstract. Digital Signatures enable authenticating messages in a way that disallows repudiation. While non-repudiation is essential in some applications, it might be undesirable in others. Two related notions of authentication are: Deniable Authentication (see Dwork, Naor and Sahai [25]) and Ring Signatures (see Rivest, Shamir and Tauman [38]). In this paper we show how to combine these notions and achieve Deniable Ring Authentication: it is possible to convince a verifier that a member of an ad hoc subset of participants (a ring) is authenticating a message m without revealing which one (source hiding), and the verifier V cannot convince a third party that message m was indeed authenticated – there is no ‘paper trail ’ of the conversation, other than what could be produced by V alone, as in zero-knowledge. We provide an efficient protocol for deniable ring authentication based on any strong encryption scheme. That is once an entity has published a public-key of such an encryption system, it can be drafted to any such ring. There is no need for any other cryptographic primitive. The scheme can be extended to yield threshold authentication (e.g. at least k members of the ring are approving the message) as well. 1

"... Applications such as e-commerce payment protocols, elec-tronic contract signing, and certified e-mail delivery require that fair exchange be assured. A fair-exchange protocol al-lows two parties to exchange items in a fair way so that either each party gets the other's item, or neither party do ..."

Applications such as e-commerce payment protocols, elec-tronic contract signing, and certified e-mail delivery require that fair exchange be assured. A fair-exchange protocol al-lows two parties to exchange items in a fair way so that either each party gets the other&apos;s item, or neither party does. We describe a novel method of constructing very ef-ficient fair-exchange protocols by distributing the computa-tion of RSA signatures. Specifically, we employ multisig-natures based on the RSA-signature scheme. To date, the vast majority of fair-exchange protocols require the use of zero-knowledge proofs, which is the most computationally intensive part of the exchange protocol. Using the intrinsic features of our multisignature model, we construct protocols that require no zero-knowledge proofs in the exchange proto-col. Use of zero-knowledge proofs is needed only in the pro-tocol setup phase--this is a one-time cost. Furthermore, our scheme uses multisignatures that are compatible with the underlying standard (single-signer) signature scheme, which makes it possible to readily integrate the fair-exchange fea-ture with existing e-commerce systems.

"... Group signature schemes are fundamental cryptographic tools that enable unlinkably anonymous authentication, in the same fashion that digital signatures provide the basis for strong authentication protocols. In this paper we present the first group signature scheme with constantsize parameters that ..."

Group signature schemes are fundamental cryptographic tools that enable unlinkably anonymous authentication, in the same fashion that digital signatures provide the basis for strong authentication protocols. In this paper we present the first group signature scheme with constantsize parameters that does not employ any trapdoor function. This novel type of group signature scheme allows public parameters to be shared among organizations. Such sharing represents a highly desirable simpli cation over existing schemes, which require each organization to maintain a separate cryptographic domain.

"... Abstract. An identity escrow scheme allows a member of a group to prove membership in this group without revealing any extra information. At the same time, in case of abuse, his identity can still be discovered. Such a scheme allows anonymous access control. In this paper, we put forward the notion ..."

Abstract. An identity escrow scheme allows a member of a group to prove membership in this group without revealing any extra information. At the same time, in case of abuse, his identity can still be discovered. Such a scheme allows anonymous access control. In this paper, we put forward the notion of an identity escrow scheme with appointed verifiers. Such a scheme allows the user to only convince an appointed verifier (or several appointed verifiers) of his membership; but no unauthorized verifier can verify a user’s group membership even if the user fully cooperates, unless the user is completely under his control. We provide a formal definition of this new notion and give an efficient construction of an identity escrow scheme with appointed verifiers provably secure under common number-theoretic assumptions in the public-key model.

"... Abstract. Interactions in electronic media require mutual trust to be established, preferably through the release of certified information. Disclosing certificates for provisioning the required information often leads to the disclosure of additional information not required for the purpose of the in ..."

Abstract. Interactions in electronic media require mutual trust to be established, preferably through the release of certified information. Disclosing certificates for provisioning the required information often leads to the disclosure of additional information not required for the purpose of the interaction. For instance, ordinary certificates unnecessarily reveal their binary representation. We propose a certificate-based framework comprising protocol definitions and abstract interface specifications for controlled, that is well-specified, release of data. This includes controlled release during the certification of data and controlled release of certified data. The protocols are based on proofs of knowledge of certificates and relations over the attributes, ensuring that no side information but only the specified data are revealed. Furthermore, the protocols allow one to release certified data in plain or encrypted form and to prove general expressions over the data items. Our framework can be seen as a generalization of anonymous credential systems, group signature, traceable signature, and e-cash schemes. The framework encompasses a specification language that allows one to precisely specify what data to release and how to release them in the protocols. We outline how our framework can be implemented cryptographically. The key application of our framework is the user-controlled release of attributes. Leveraging ideas of public key infrastructures, a privacy PKI (pPKI) can be built on top of the framework. We consider our framework a central building block to achieve privacy on the Internet. 1